Back in the swing of it
by Al Evans
Summary: After five years on the road, hey didn't want to get involved. But when a certain 'lethal protector' starts causing trouble in his home city Ben Reilly must swing into action once again.


I'd been on the road for five years. Five years in exile, carving out a name, an identity, a life from nothing.

All the while being tormented by the thoughts and memories of a man who had all that and more. The man who I knew felt like the whole world was against him. He didn't know how lucky, how truly blessed he was.

At least he was part of the world, not like me. I belonged nowhere. I wasn't even supposed to be alive. Heck I shouldn't have existed in the first place.

I'd been a tool. An experiment…A clone…

But then I'd found myself back in New York City. Aunt May was sick. Really sick. And no one knew exactly how much time she had left. If there was anything I could do or if this was my last chance to see her, even if it was just from a distance, I had to take the chance.

See…she wasn't my aunt. I had never been a child. I'd never grown up. May Parker had never packed my lunch for me every day before school. She hadn't hugged me whenever I was scared or hurt. She'd never been there for me like a mother throughout my life.

But she'd been there for him.

He remembered all those things.

He loved her.

Which meant….I did too.

Despite everything….she was still _my_ aunt. I couldn't _not_ be there for her at a time like this.

But then things got complicated.

I met _him_….Peter Parker. And he did not take kindly to someone running around with his face, thoughts or feelings. I couldn't blame him. I'd have felt the same way. I mean how would _you_ have liked to come face to face with proof that everything that makes you unique can just belong to someone else? That you can just be copied and mass produced?

We went our separate ways but during our encounter he made it clear he wanted me gone; or maybe worse. I was half willing to oblige but I was determined to stay for Aunt May's sake, whether she got better or not.

Then as I got myself a place I saw things, things which I knew Peter would deal with if he'd seen them. Muggings. Assaults. Accidents. People who needed Spider-Man's help.

I intervened whenever I saw them, just as I had during my time on the road. But like those lonely years spent travelling, I kept telling myself they were a series of isolated incidents. Just one offs, exceptions. I couldn't stand by and let people get hurt but I wasn't going to _look_ for trouble either.

That was until I encountered a black and white nightmare too big to ignore.

Venom.

I didn't know all the details about who or what he was, but I'd kept abreast of the news enough to know he was bad news. He was some kind of super powered nut job who somehow wound up with his own take on a slick black suit Peter sported years ago; with Peter's powers to match.

A lunatic with Peter's powers (with my powers) going unchecked in the city? It should've been Peter's problem. But he wasn't around. He wasn't going to stop Venom.

And as much as I told myself otherwise, if Peter wasn't going to shoulder this responsibility…then that made it _my _responsibility_._

I'd left the city all those years ago with a costume of my own. It'd been identical to Peter's but over the years I hadn't taken the best care of it. The gloves and the mask were okay but the rest of it was long gone. The web-shooters were another story. I'd kept those, even tinkered with them. But I couldn't go out with just those and my street clothes. I didn't have too many clothes to begin with!

But I had been working on a little something over the years. It had been an indulgent weakness. It was a simple red spandex suit and mask. Something to use in an emergency I told myself. But I knew that wasn't true. I knew I'd worked on it whenever I felt really homesick or low. It was so stupid but in making it and keeping it near me it'd made me feel better sometimes.

Well now it was much more than that. And yet it still needed a little something. I tried to justify my childishness to myself. After all it _was_ cold in the city at that time of year. I might as well have been comfortable whilst I risk life and limb right? And if I happened to find what I needed in the spider section of the Natural History Museum's gift shop, well what could it hurt?

With that, I was finally ready. I went to the roof of my apartment building, determined to find and stop Venom before he did any more damage.

Standing on the edge of the building I looked down. I'd never been afraid of heights, yet staring over the edge of the ledge I felt nervous. I wasn't sure if I could do this, though that scientist brain of mine was assuring me that there was no logical reason I couldn't.

My motor functions would still be there. The web-shooters defiantly still worked. And my spider sense could help me if I really needed it to. I'd be fine.

Despite all that I was trembling as I stretched out my arm, turned my wrist, pressed my two middle fingers to the trigger in the palm of my glove and tapped twice. The web jetted out just like it was supposed to. The web hit it's mark and I grabbed the line tight.

Taking a deep breath I looked down again…and leapt over the edge.

I'd come to this city and put on this costume all out of necessity. I'd done it because I felt I _had_ to more than because I _wanted_ to. I was determined to stop, to leave, as soon as my business was concluded.

But as I fell, as I began to instinctivly manoeuvre my body so that my fall became a swing and I felt the inertia of my defying of gravity, I discovered I had a big problem.

Because, my God…how could I ever stop this?

How could _anyone _stop this if they knew what it was like? But no one could possibly know. How could anyone even begin to imagine how this felt?

Soaring dozens of stories high at God only knows what speed.

Knowing there is only a one thin thread strand between you and the pavement.

Feeling the adrenaline flare in you in that half second when you let go of your line and are suspended in mid air before gravity kicks in.

And then two quick taps to your palm, a small click, a slight shake on your wrist, a glint from a shining strand, and finally a tug on your arm as the web anchors, and you're safe again.

You're flying through the air, the wind rushing past you through the concrete canyons of the greatest city on Earth.

I wanted to look for Venom. That's what I intended to do. That was my responsibility. But I didn't look very hard. I couldn't help myself.

Was it just some fun? Maybe to anyone who'd been watching me. But the truth is it was so much more than that.

For the first time in too long I felt…whole. Like I'd been reunited with a limb I'd lost. Like I could breathe again.

This was different from using my powers on and off whilst on the road. Garbed in the costume, the mask covering my face, swinging from a web, in **_this _**city…my city….my home. Nothing before could compare to it. Nothing.

It was almost like the first time I-no, the first time _Peter_, had ever swing from a web.

Except I knew fifteen year old 'Puny Parker' had never felt exactly as I felt at that moment. The excitement and thrill of discovering what web swinging for the first time couldn't compare to the sensation of _re_-discovering it as I was.

To come back to a part of yourself after so long, a part you'd tried to deny. To defy yourself and the whole damn world for _ever_ forbidding you from being what you were _born_ to be. To rejoice in being _Spider-Man_ again!

In my memories I'd always remembered being Peter. I'd remembered how by the time the Shea Stadium incident happened he'd grown so used to web-swinging it was second nature. It wasn't much of a thrill.

Five years away from it and _I_ certainly wasn't taking it for granted. And I knew I never, ever would.

I'd secretly longed and dreamed to do this again, and hated myself for it.

I tried to tell myself that wasn't me.

That person who felt free as he flew through the air above everyone and everything in the whole world was another man.

Well…to _Hell_ with that!

Peter Parker or not.

Spider-Man or not.

Man or not.

This was _me._

Ben Reilly.

Deal with it world!

_Look…I know this technically doesn't make sense within continuity. Ben went web-swinging a few times before he became the Scarlet Spider but I felt that a story about that would be both less poetic as well as not making sense since at the time he didn't exactly have time to observe or enjoy the experience of web swinging again._

_It just didn't make for the story I wanted to tell._


End file.
